


let's go fly a kite

by belovedmuerto



Series: An Experiment in Empathy [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Gen, Psychic Bond, empath!John, experiment in empathy, setbacks, sherlock doesn't deal well on his own
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-25
Updated: 2011-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-26 12:59:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock doesn't deal well when John is out of range.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let's go fly a kite

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for drug usage. (There's no box to tick for that.) I don't think I did anything like glorifying it, but seriously, drugs are bad and you shouldn't do them.
> 
> This story has been written since August. It was one of those things that jumped up and said "Hey you need to write me RIGHT NOW, even if I don't fit into your timeline for AGES. HA." So I wrote it and I've been sitting on it. Hopefully it still works.
> 
> The title of this story is NOT from a Depeche Mode song OR a Florence + the Machine song. XD
> 
> Castiron did beta-duty, and red_adam did the Brit-picking, and they are both awesomer than awesome.

Sherlock gets dressed shortly after John leaves the flat for the night, because he's left alone with his own emotions and he doesn't want to— can't, if he's completely honest with himself— deal with them or the sense of emptiness that John leaves when he's far enough away that Sherlock can't feel him anymore (he can't quite write emotions off the way he used to. He blames John for this. So does John, actually; this only helps some of the time).

“Off out,” John had explained with a grimace. “You'll be all right, yeah?” Going to see his sister, who is trying to make it through detox (again). Sherlock had grunted in reply, not bothering to point out what they both knew: it wouldn't stick. It never did, with Harry. John's sister makes him sad; Sherlock will have to deal with sad John when he returns tomorrow, will have to be the strong one for a while. He doesn't like doing that. He will do what he has to, because John requires it, and Sherlock will work quite hard indeed to keep John from knowing how little he cares for being the stronger of the two of them, but he won’t like it, and he’ll probably end up feeling horrendous for days afterward.

Coping is something Sherlock only does when John is around.

When he's not, Sherlock reverts to old habits, falls into old grooves. Most of the time, it's only for an afternoon, or as long as it takes John to do the shopping or pick up takeaway or go to the library or have a beer at the pub with Greg Lestrade. Sherlock can manage those crises with his violin, with delicate experiments that require utmost concentration, with spending time with Mrs Hudson or taking a nap or staring at the back of the couch very, very hard.

It's never been overnight. There's no way he can handle a whole night without outside help.

He gets dressed and takes a cab to a pub he used to frequent. One he used to frequent when cocaine was his only and most beloved friend. It's actually odd, not knowing what the cabbie is worrying about, not knowing random tidbits of information or emotion from various people on the street.

He scowls the entire way there; he'd gone looking for the stash (and oh, doesn't that make him feel silly?) he kept hidden away _just in case_ and found it to be not there. All that lovely, expensive cocaine, gone; disappeared without a trace. And he'd been so sure that this hiding place was undetectable. Sherlock had wanted to throw things; it was either Mycroft or John who'd found it. He had suspected Mycroft at first, until he realizes that Mycroft wouldn't have been able to resist leaving behind something to torment him: a note or perhaps a chocolate bar or something equally snide. So it must've been John, and at first he can't believe that John wouldn't have said something, yelled at him, exuded disappointment at him for hours upon dreadful hours after finding and destroying it.

Until he thinks a little further and remembers that John went to medical school and before that, John went to university. John went to university and medical school and is unbearably normal in many aspects. John is a good person, a moral person in his own mad way (and there are times that Sherlock is absolutely certain that he is not the insane one in their friendship), but he's not righteous or overly stringent when it comes to illegalities. He owns an illegal firearm, for one thing. He knows about Sherlock’s past with drugs--he’s seen it all--and he’s never admonished Sherlock for it. He’s never even brought it up.

Sherlock doesn't know for sure as drugs have only ever been of use personally when they turn his brain off for a bit, but he expects that most normal people require at least some chemical assistance to get through medical school. And John is brilliant in his own way, but he isn't quite _that_ brilliant. He is brilliantly normal; remarkable and wonderful and mad in all the most complementary-to-Sherlock ways, of course, but not quite that brilliant (thankfully Sherlock knows he's brilliant enough for the both of them, and he far prefers John just as he is).

So maybe it was John after all.

Or perhaps John is just saving the knowledge of Sherlock's lingering recreational crutch until Sherlock really angers him. He wouldn't put that past John either.

No one recognizes him at the pub, and he’s not sure if he’s relieved or disappointed. Not that he’d ever had much time for the people who frequent this particular dive, but they’d counted him a compatriot once upon a times, a fellow-in-arms in the war against reality. Sherlock isn’t quite as skeletally thin as he was then; he’s a few years older and his cheekbones aren’t quite as prominent. His hair is longer; but really he feels like he looks about the same--they all do, why shouldn’t he? No matter, really; it’s not as though he cares about any of them. For now, he's glad that he can't tell how any of them feel, because he can see most of it in their faces, and none of it is pleasant to even observe; he's sure feeling it would send him running in a panic.

He buys himself a ridiculous drink he has no intention of actually consuming and surveys the crowd, easily deducing which of the people he needs to speak with. Things change, drug dealers rarely do. He starts their transaction by sending her a drink. He ends it lighter of pocket and grinning like a madman, standing in the toilet snorting cocaine off the side of the sink.

Not the most hygienic way of taking care of things, but he'd rather walk home high than risk getting home to find Mycroft waiting to hoover all the cocaine off the coffee table.

He'd done that once, before the combined efforts of himself and Lestrade (completely separately, actually, though Sherlock shudders to think what would happen if those two combined forces) had got Sherlock entirely clean. Sherlock hadn't even known that Mycroft knew how to turn on a hoover, let alone that he had the audacity to take the entire damned contraption with him afterward, ensuring Sherlock couldn't retrieve any of the drug.

Sherlock waits for it to start to work, waits while the constant noise of his brain quiets and then mostly stops, letting his body take over for a while. Then he walks home, completely focused on his physical self instead of his mental self for once. He isn’t burning with pain at the spikiness of his emotions (left without the buffer of John’s much more rounded at the edges sense of calm), as the only thing he feels is bliss. Pure, unadulterated, tingly bliss.

It's wonderful.

He manages to widen his focus a couple times, to duck into alleys for more, enough to make sure he isn't being followed, won't be bothered. He enjoys the walk home more than he's enjoyed anything in a long time: the sound of his feet hitting pavement, the feel of silk shirt, silk boxers, fine wool trousers against his skin. He enjoys the comfort of his coat, the weight of it, the familiar smell of himself, the feel of the skin on the tips of his fingers as he rubs them absently together in his coat pockets. He enjoys his own gracefulness, something that was hard-earned but looks _really_ good on him.

He is, in short, higher than a kite.

And that sets him to humming, some song about flying kites from some movie. He's deleted the film already (mostly), but John had enjoyed it to an infectious degree when it had been on (and it’s much harder for him to delete things when they’re related to John in even the tiniest of ways). There had been a lovely brunette woman with a wonderful voice; it had made Sherlock want to harmonize with her on his violin, an urge he'd had to put quite a bit of effort into resisting. John had felt warm and fuzzy and had smiled throughout the whole film, explaining the childhood memories behind it, though he didn't need to because Sherlock already knew them: young John and Harry had wanted a magical governess as well, until they'd remembered that their Gran was better than any silly old governess, magical or not.

Sherlock gets back to 221B Baker Street in what feels like no time at all, a skip in his step, still humming under his breath. The whole house is empty but for him: he'll be able to enjoy the rest of his new-bought drug in peace, play the violin as well or as badly as he could possibly want, order the pizza that he's suddenly ravenous for, wander the flat completely naked if the mood strikes him--

“Sherlock.”

Sherlock halts just inside the flat, coat half off his shoulders. John is there; swaying in the middle of the lounge, pupils blown wide enough that his irises are just a sliver around them, mouth hanging slack.

 _Oh. Fuck. Oops._

“John?”

It takes John forever to focus outside himself. “You're... high. _Really_ fucking high.”

Sherlock nods. There’s really no denying it.

“I'm... really. _Fucking_. High.”

“You're what?”

“You got me high, Sherlock.” And John giggles. _Giggles_. “I've not been this high since I was at uni.”

“I'm... sorry?”

“No you're not.”

“Pizza?”

“Fantastic.”

Sherlock finishes removing his coat— even that feels wonderful. All his movements have gone slow and languorous. He could spend hours (literally: hours) just playing with the cuffs of his sleeves right now. Maybe he will.

“I'm going to be angry with you, Sherlock. I think,” John says from where he's sprawled on the lounge floor.

“Hmm?” What is he doing in the kitchen? Oh fuck it, who cares?

“When I'm not feeling so fucking fantastic, I'm going to be cross with you about this. You should have said something.”

Sherlock doesn't answer, but he does go into the lounge, where he decides that John looks really comfortable, and lies down beside him.

“Our floor is really comfy,” he observes.

John giggles. “I thought so too.” Then, “I really like your shirt. It looks really smooth.”

“It's silk. Feel it.” He thrusts his arm into John's line of sight, sighs when John starts whispering his fingertips over the silk, dragging the material over his skin, leaving goosebumps in his wake.

Things go quiet for a while; Sherlock is enjoying the feeling of John rubbing his arm, and John is enjoying the feel of warm silk under his fingers.

***

John has a pretty terrible singing voice, but he doesn’t particularly care. He sings a song about fish. _Les poissons_ , he calls them, over and over in a terrible French accent, complete with exaggerated nasal laughing.

Only he sings it like a funeral dirge. Sherlock can’t deduce where that aspect of it comes from, but he does know that it’s one of the funniest things he’s ever heard in his whole life, and he rolls on the floor laughing until John gives up trying to finish his song about the delicious fish and joins him.

***

“John?”

“Hmm?” John is making snow angels on the floor.

“Why did you come home early?” Sherlock rolls onto his side and props his head up on one hand to look at John.

John scowls. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Tell me? Please.”

John scowls some more and stops sweeping his arms and legs over the carpet. “I got there and Harry was completely pissed. So I got mad and left again.”

“I’m sorry, John.”

“So am I.”

***

At some point, the music starts. Sherlock isn’t sure who started it or why, but it’s lovely. John starts to dance, smiling an entirely blissful smile. Sometimes it’s directed at Sherlock, but mostly he’s smiling at everything and nothing at all. He wriggles and writhes, sways and shimmies, and Sherlock giggles, laying helplessly on the floor while John dances above him.

“Oh, this is my favorite!” John declares of just about every new song as it plays. He pauses before identifying the track, fingers tracing patterns in the air, makes his declaration, and starts his ridiculous moving again.

At some point, Sherlock wonders (not aloud, though neither he nor John realize it) about the fact that John has a strange penchant for very unhappy but danceable music from the early 80s.

“There was a girl,” John answers, breathless, arms waving over his head, “Oh, ok, and a bloke, too. He was a much better kisser than she was. He wore more eyeliner than she did, too.”

***

Sometime around four in the morning, John opens his eyes when Sherlock finally ceases playing his violin. Sherlock’s eyes are shut, violin between chin and shoulder, his bow weaving through the air in time with some tune only he can hear. John is still swaying, but what he’s doing can no longer be construed as “dancing” by anyone, not even himself.

Sherlock eventually opens his eyes and focuses on John, after the third or fourth iteration of his name.

“Hmm?” The euphoria is still there, but different. Quieter, more content. He loves this part. He never wants it to end, he could stay here forever, especially if John stays with him.

“C’mon. Bed.”

Sherlock shakes his head. He doesn’t need sleep, he only needs this. And whatever happened to that pizza he’d wanted? There’s no pizza here, he’d be able to smell it.

“What happened to the pizza?”

“Pizza? What pizza?” John asks.

“I wanted pizza,” Sherlock pouts, but he puts down his instrument and his bow.

John sighs and proceeds to step entirely into Sherlock’s space, doing his best to focus on being intimidating and in command when all he wants to do is giggle over their height difference (which really isn’t as bad as all that, but Sherlock looks like he’s been stretched sometimes) (and that makes John want to giggle even more). He takes a few moments to concentrate on not just leaning into Sherlock and going to sleep standing in the lounge.

“Sherlock. We. Are going. To bed. Now.”

“But I--”

“I do not care. I am not going to deal with you in the comedown off a drugs binge if you haven’t bothered to sleep. I will tie you to something uncomfortable--”

Sherlock scoffs, drapes an arm around John’s shoulders, and leans.

“Don’t think I can’t, you massive scarecrow.” John takes Sherlock’s distraction as opportunity to start them up to his room. “I was in the army, you know. They teach one things. Anyway, if you don’t get some sleep, I will tie you up and, and, um, I’ll force you to eat a cake. And then I’ll leave you there and go out for a pint and I’ll go for a walk and I’ll leave you alone for hours.”

Sherlock whimpers.

“So. You. Are. Going. To. Sleep.”

“Why are your sentences one word long, John? That’s not very good grammar.”

“For emphasis, Sherlock. Do you understand me?” At this point, they’re in John’s room.

John plants Sherlock next to the bed and starts unbuttoning his shirt. A hanger appears as if by magic, or so Sherlock surmises, and the silk shirt is hung in John’s wardrobe. John hands Sherlock another hanger with a gesture. “You get to take off your own trousers, Sherlock. I’m not your valet.”

“I haven’t anything to sleep in,” Sherlock complains after he’s hung up his trousers.

John hands him a pair of his own pajama pants. “You leave your kit all over the flat, are you aware of that?”

Sherlock gapes, then corrects himself and glares.

John pulls off his own jumper and hands it to Sherlock. “It’s your favorite, after all.” John sleeps in far less clothing than Sherlock ever does, but he’s got into the habit of at least wearing pyjama pants and a tee-shirt since they started with sharing a bed sometimes.

They don’t actually sleep in the same bed every night, but neither of them has nightmares if they do, so it happens more often than not. John finds Sherlock tends to be much less of a prat when he gets at least a few hours of sleep a night. Sometimes, he even manages to get Sherlock to sleep whilst on a case.

“Go on, then,” John instructs, voice slurring with exhaustion and the fading effects of the high, giving Sherlock a shove towards the bed. “In you get.”

Sherlock grumbles but complies. He curls up facing away from John, crossing his arms and exuding as much unhappiness as he can around the euphoria. John just chuckles at him and spoons up behind him.

“Big spoon,” John murmurs. “Ha.”

Sherlock likes it when John is the big spoon, but he’d never admit that to his flatmate (not that he needs to, mind you). It’s been something of a competition between them. Granted, John had started it. And John had been competing for far longer than Sherlock. And John had to explain not only what spooning is, but also define big and little spoons for Sherlock, but after all that weird pop cultural stuff got cleared up (people are so strange), Sherlock joined in. He listens to John breathing against his neck and doesn’t realize he’s fallen asleep listening to it, until he wakes up hours later.

The late-morning sun is streaming in through John’s window, and Sherlock is alone in the bed.

He feels terrible.

His nose hurts, his head hurts, his throat hurts. His stomach doesn’t precisely hurt, but--oh, that’s _hunger_. He forgets what that feels like sometimes, he’s so used to ignoring it.

And John, oh, John is not feeling any better, and he is very much _not_ happy and it rolls through Sherlock in waves. He groans and curls up on his side. If there’s one thing he doesn’t want to face when this hungover, it’s an equally hungover and _disappointedangrysadresignedregretful_ John Watson.

John walks into the room a few minutes later, carrying a cup of tea.

“Might as well get up, Sherlock, I know you’re awake,” he says, his short temper and spiky, rioting emotions coloring his voice a dull, throbbing red. He leaves the tea on the bedside table and leaves again.

Sherlock groans, once he hears that John has gone back downstairs. He doesn’t want to face the day, he doesn’t want to face this, he doesn’t want to face a John Watson whose emotions are, for now, as spiky as his own usually are. He knows just as well as John does that he hadn't thought this would happen. He hadn't thought at all, really, and he's pretty sure that's why John is so mad, that he hadn't thought, and that he hadn't said anything to him about what he was going to do.

It's a shame, really, that John had come home early, and even more so that Sherlock's stupid decision had affected John so profoundly. He hadn't meant for that to happen. He hadn't meant for any of it to happen, he just wanted it all to stop for a while. He'd just wanted to be alone in his own head without being poked and prodded constantly by the emotions that he can no longer override with simple logic or simply ignore.

But John’s here to be the strong one, so Sherlock won’t have to be. Which is consolation, anyway. He drags himself to the side of the bed, and forces himself into an upright and locked position.

Then he stands swaying in the still air of the bedroom for a few long minutes. Once he’s found a small measure of his sense of equilibrium, he grabs the cup of tea and slowly makes his way downstairs to the lounge.

John is in the kitchen, standing at the sink. As far as Sherlock can tell at a glance, he’s not doing anything but staring. That’s probably not a good sign. Down here, closer to him, John feels even spikier than Sherlock does. Anger and frustration prick holes in his skin and his brain.

Sherlock slumps into his chair and snuggles as deep into John’s jumper as he can. Maybe if he hunches over enough he’ll turn invisible and when he comes back John will be all better and they won’t have to talk. _He_ won't have to talk. Maybe John’s feelings will go less spiky around the edges and Sherlock will be able to tell them apart from his own again and things will be all right. Or perhaps hell will freeze over or they’ll both be killed by a stray meteorite in the next two minutes.

Sherlock draws his knees up to his chest and tries to white out everything in his mind. He keeps at it until his headache is far worse than it should be before giving up and snapping at John, “Will you just get it over with? I can’t stand this.”

When in doubt, when in the wrong, when uncertain, when terrified that you may have just driven your flatmate to completely sever all ties with you, lash out irrationally. It’s always worked for Sherlock before, insofar as it’s kept him alone his entire life. It's an old habit, and he should really know better than to do this to John by now, especially now that John is in his head all the time.

John sighs one of his longest sighs and looks at Sherlock. Doesn’t rise to the bait of his tone or his words, just looks at him. Sherlock hates it when John does this, it makes him squirm and feel and regret his words, and regretting the things he says is not something Sherlock is good at. He is the one to break the gaze, a concession he would never make for another living soul. John is the only one who can make him blush and feel guilty for what he's said, for how carelessly cruel he can sometimes be, and he does it all with a single level stare. Sherlock is vaguely glad for a moment that he rarely makes John truly angry with him, because he knew before that he wouldn't like it, and he's not sure he'd be able to survive it now that John is in his head all the time.

John brings his almost empty mug of tea into the lounge and sits on the couch. “Come here, Sherlock.” He sounds tired, like he didn't sleep much. He sounds resigned and very, very controlled. John is working very hard to keep his voice even and steady, to keep his anger in check and his frustration from making him act like Sherlock would.

For a long minute, Sherlock considers this. He considers his options (run. _Run_. Flee, you fool). And he remembers that John is the strong one here, emotionally (and physically, too, if he’s being honest. Sherlock had that boxing training, yes, but he’s certain that John would fight dirty), so he obeys, reluctantly getting up and shuffling to the sofa. He sits down as far from John as he can, draws his knees back up to his chin, his bony line of defense. His toes curl into the soft leather of the seat cushion. He looks like a sullen teenager. He feels like one, too.

John looks at him, looks into him, and sighs again. “You should have said something, Sherlock.” His voice is strained, and his head hurts and Sherlock regrets that John has to share his hangover as well as he'd shared the high. He can't tell if the strain is because of anger and frustration though, or because of the headache.

Sherlock ducks his head until he’s only looking at John with one eye, the other one hidden by his own hair and his arms. It would be adorable if John didn’t know precisely why he’s doing it.

“Why did you do it?”

“For old time’s sake?” Sherlock offers.

“Bollocks, Sherlock!” John jumps to his feet and paces to the other side of the lounge, like he's afraid he'll throttle Sherlock if he is too close to him right now (he is, the urge is nearly overwhelming). “Tell me! I can’t help if I don’t know what the problem is. We can't fix these things if you never tell me about them. I can tell what you feel but I can't read your mind, Sherlock!”

“It’s you, John,” Sherlock says, very softly, to his knees.

“I’m--Sherlock.” John’s face twists into disbelief.

“You left.”

“I left for the night, Sherlock. What does that have to do--”

“I can’t handle it, John. Not on my own.”

John thinks that through, even though Sherlock’s emotional state, his fear and sadness and utter belief that he can’t deal with his own emotions without John, is laid out before him like a Tube map. “But if I’m not here, I’m not in your head. I thought you’d be happy to have the flat to yourself for the night. I thought you were going to be angry that I came back early.”

Sherlock doesn’t reply, since his actions speak quite clearly to the opposite of that being the truth.

“You're ridiculous, you know that?” John's frustration is clear in his voice and his grip on the back of the armchair he stands behind and his expression.

Sherlock glares at him, but the flash of hurt that flits through his head and through his eyes is enough to make John take a deep breath and wrestle control back from his anger.

“What can I do to help, Sherlock? I’d really prefer it if I didn’t come home to find you snorting drugs off our coffee table anytime soon. As much fun as it is while it happens, I really can't deal with being high while I'm at work, and I would really rather we explore all our other options before we resort to that.”

“You can never leave me again,” Sherlock whispers, still talking to his knees.

For a moment, John doesn't believe he'd heard him right. But Sherlock finally looks up at him, and his conviction is apparent. “Sherlock, that’s impossible. There’s no way we can be that close to each other every single day for the rest of our lives. We’d kill each other.”

Sherlock shrugs. He wraps his arms a bit tighter around his knees and makes an offering to John’s strength, offers up his own emotional weakness out loud. “I can’t turn it off like I used to anymore, John. And I need a buffer from how I feel, and that’s you. And you were gone, and it was too long for me to be able to cope with it.”

John stares at him, astonished, for almost long enough to make Sherlock squirm, then scrubs his hands through his hair and over his face. “There’s got to be a better way, Sherlock.”

“If there is, I don’t know it.”

“We’ll find something, Sherlock. And if we don’t, then we’ll figure out something that isn’t you getting god only knows what from god only knows who. If nothing else, we’ll figure out something I can get you legally that will work.”

Sherlock gives John a searching look. “You’d do that?”

“Yes, of course I would. You should have _told_ me, Sherlock. God, you're an idiot sometimes— did you think I wouldn't help? I could have helped, I know I could have.”

This earns him that rare childlike smile from Sherlock.

“We’ll work on this. You don’t have to deal with this on your own.”

“Yes, John.”

“We’re going to start today.”

“Start what?”

“Working on our range. You’re all right when I’m in your head, right? That’s what you were getting at?”

Sherlock’s look of awe is almost enough to send John blushing, but he manages. He shrugs. “If we have a larger range, this wouldn’t have happened. So we’ll fix it.”

John lets go of the armchair finally, stretches his fingers to work out the kinks. He leaves Sherlock sitting on the couch and goes into the kitchen. “Is the bacon in the fridge safe?”

“For now,” Sherlock replies.

“Excellent. You're eating breakfast.”

“I'm what?”

“This is your punishment. You're eating breakfast. Full breakfast. And no arguments, you aren’t allowed to argue this one.”

Sherlock groans and flops out on the couch to pout for a while, but he can’t help the nearly overwhelming sense of relief that John is going to fix this, fix it so he won’t have to deal on his own, fix _him_. And it’s totally all right that John can feel it, too. Even if it does mean he has to eat a full meal.


End file.
